By Hector Gonzalez
Staff Writer

June 3, 2015 -- The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District will use more than $620,000 from the state Water Resources Control Board to create storm water capture projects and educate students on water conservation, District officials said this week .

The district is one of 30 school districts and institutions receiving a share of $30 million from the newly created state Drought Response Outreach Program for Schools (DROPS), said George Kostyrko, spokesman for the state Water Board, which is distributing the funding.

SMMUSD will receive $621,256 from the program and will add $213,000 in matching funds for a total of $834,326.

The district applied for the funding for storm water capture at the Will Rogers Learning Community and to educate students on water conservation, according to information from the state Water Board.

District officials were scheduled to discuss the SMMUSD’s overall water conservation efforts and programs, including those funded by the DROPS grant, at a meeting Wednesday, said Gail Pinsker, the district’s spokeswoman.

Money for DROPS comes from Proposition 13, the Safe Drinking Water, Clean Water, Watershed Protection and Flood Protection Act of 2000, and Proposition 40, the California Clean Water, Clean Air, Safe Neighborhood Parks, and Coastal Protection Act of 2002, said Water Board spokesman Tim Moran.

DROPS helps schools create storm water capture projects and student education projects, Moran said. Typical projects include vegetated swales, storm water planters, pervious paving, rainwater harvesting and water-wise landscaping, he said.

“With a fourth year of record-setting drought, programs such as DROPS play an important role in educating our young folks about the different ways we can conserve water, especially with our current drought conditions,” said state Water Board Vice Chairwoman Frances Spivy-Weber in announcing the grants.

“Students will get to see first-hand how storm water capture systems work right on their campuses,” said Spivy-Weber. “They’ll also be taught the importance of conservation and how they can be good stewards of one of our most precious resources.”

Water Board officials hope students take water conservation knowledge gained from the program home and share it with their families, “creating entire water-wise households,” said Spivy-Weber.

“As we continue to deal with the current drought and the growing effects of climate change, educating our youth about conservation now is a high priority.”

State water regulators developed DROPS in April 2014 in response to Gov. Jerry Brown’s emergency drought declaration three months earlier.

Water Board officials received 49 applications for the DROPS funding, approving 30 projects. The projects must be completed by March 2019, said Kostyrko.